


End of Boredom

by killerweasel



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-18
Updated: 2012-11-18
Packaged: 2017-11-19 00:49:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/567179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/killerweasel/pseuds/killerweasel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sebastian always knew how it would end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	End of Boredom

Title: End of Boredom  
Fandom: _Sherlock_  
Characters: Sebastian Moran, Jim Moriarty, Mycroft Holmes  
Word Count: 1,231  
Rating: R  
A/N: AU after _The Reichenbach Fall_  
Warnings: character death

 

Sebastian stared down at the still form of Jim Moriarty. Hard to believe the man in front of him had been in charge of the largest criminal empire in the world for the last ten years. With a sigh, Sebastian picked up the cloth and began to gently clean the blood and gore from Jim’s skin. He’d already taken care of the bits of skull and brains from Jim’s hair. Part of him felt Jim would have been horrified by what the bloodstains had done to his nice suit.

He wondered how long it would take before the criminal network discovered Jim was no longer in charge. Sebastian had no interest running an empire. It was far too much work, far too much thinking, and took a great deal of effort by all involved to keep it running like a well-oiled machine. The empire had been Jim’s pride and joy, but like everything else, he’d eventually grown bored by it. There were only so many gangs you could crush, so many people you could threaten, and so many lives you could bring to a swift, bloody end before it just seemed like you were only going through the motions.

Then Sherlock Holmes had appeared on Jim’s radar. Very few people were as smart as Jim. Sebastian could count the ones he knew of on one hand. Though Jim had poked and prodded at Mycroft Holmes, the elder Holmes made it very clear he didn’t play games, and Jim backed off, focusing all of his attention on the younger brother instead. It turned out Jim had unintentionally interacted with Sherlock before, years earlier. While Sebastian was leery about this entire thing, Jim was absolutely giddy to have someone to play with.

Everything was a game for Jim. It had to be. Where games were always interesting, reality could be very boring. A bored Jim was not someone you wanted to ever be around. If he grew bored, he couldn’t deal with the constant stream of thoughts pounding into his brain. When that happened, Sebastian was the only one brave enough (or foolish enough) to try to make things better before Jim snapped and minions would start dying like flies. It wasn’t difficult to replace the minions, but the clean-up was a pain.

Sebastian had come up with three ways to shake Jim out of a bored funk. The first was to distract him with something shiny, forcing his brain to focus on something else for a while. The something shiny could be an idea, an actual shiny object, a picture, or just about anything. Sometimes it would take a few tries before it worked. The longer it took, the more concerned Sebastian would get. He knew eventually that nothing would work and he really didn’t want to be anywhere near Jim when that happened. The result would be catastrophic.

The second involved Jim killing someone. Jim rarely got his own hands dirty. He might enjoy watching a person die in some elaborate plan he came up with, but he was never the one who actually caused it to happen. He was the puppeteer and people like Sebastian were his marionettes. Jim also enjoyed watching the light go out of someone’s eyes. When Sebastian had to go the killing route, he’d track down one of the leaders of someone who’d been threatening Jim’s empire and bring them to what he referred to as Jim’s ‘killing room’. Jim got to pull Sebastian’s strings and Sebastian would kill the man however Jim wanted. If Sebastian did it right, it would take hours before the victim died from his wounds.

The third was the last resort. If Jim’s boredom had allowed the constant stream of thoughts to grow to the point where the man couldn’t think and sometimes couldn’t even move, then there was only one way Sebastian had found that would make everything stop. He’d done it a few times during the entire time he’d worked for Jim. The first time had been an accident. Jim had lashed out while holding a knife and Sebastian reacted without thinking. His hands were around Jim’s throat, slowly choking the life out of him. Sebastian didn’t even realize what he was doing until Jim started to go limp underneath his fingers. Then he’d backed away, a bit horrified he had almost killed his boss. Except the moment Jim could breathe, the man started laughing. Apparently being that close to death made all of Jim’s thoughts vanish. Afterwards, Jim would avoid him for days, but Sebastian was okay with that. He didn’t want to be around Jim either.

When Jim had been captured by Mycroft’s people, Sebastian knew they were getting ready for the final game. Jim had been growing increasingly bored as of late and even playing with Sherlock wasn’t giving him the relief it used to. A thought popped into Sebastian’s head and it made his guts knot up. There was really only one possible outcome for the final game. No matter how he looked at it, even if Jim ‘won’, he’d still lose. The only thing that would make the boredom truly go away would be Jim’s death. And knowing Jim, it would be something over the top and dramatic with bonus points if it caused others pain in the process.

Sebastian had risked his own neck to go have a chat with Sherlock’s older brother at the man’s private club about letting Jim back out. It had actually gone much smoother and rational than he expected, probably because Mycroft was used to dealing with someone like Jim and understood the man’s thought process. Turned out Mycroft had come to the same conclusion about the final game and he was curious as to what Sebastian thought the best possible solution would be.

With a small smile on his face, Sebastian had suggested planting an idea in Jim’s head. The trick was to make Jim think it was his idea the entire time. Mycroft had matched his smile with one of his own. It seemed he had done the same thing more than once with Sherlock. Sebastian promised to try to keep Jim on track, but only if Mycroft swore to hand over Jim’s body if the whole thing ended badly.

As games went, it was quite possibly one of Jim’s best. He’d seen the man take someone’s life and turn it inside out and upside down before, but never like this. This was awe-inspiring. Sebastian had never seen Jim this happy before. The man was absolutely gleeful, at least until he realized that maybe Sherlock wasn’t as smart as he’d given him credit for. Then things went pear-shaped.

The finale score of the game was one dead genius, one supposedly dead genius, and a bunch of grief-stricken people. Sebastian wasn’t stupid. He knew there was no way in hell Mycroft would allow his brother to die. He was willing to bet Mycroft had planted a few ideas of his own into Sherlock’s head.

Sebastian buried Jim in one of the Moran family plots. He had no idea if Jim had any family anywhere or even if Jim Moriarty had been the man’s real name. He’d never asked and Jim had never said anything. The stone was a simple one and it just said ‘Here Lies Jim’. Wherever Jim was now, Sebastian really hoped he wasn’t bored.


End file.
